Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Bit More Moisture Continues in Lower Half




Rainfall occurred yesterday afternoon before 6 pm at 3 of the 93 ALERT stations, at 2 of the regular NWS reporting stations (Nogales and Ft. Huachuca both with thunder) and at 4 RAWS gauges. Amounts were less than a quarter of an inch, except for 0.35" at Empire Peak.
----------------------------------------------------------
The increase in PW noted yesterday afternoon continues today in the lower half of troposphere with values in south-central Arizona generally 35 to 40 mm, and Yuma is also up considerably from past days. The morning sounding at Tucson (top) shows more moisture below 450 mb but also a nasty inversion at the interface to the warmer dry air above. There's a nice little slug of CAPE below 450 mb but probably not enough to overcome the inversion, except perhaps over some of the mountains. The large-scale setting remains dismal with the 500 mb, west coast trough (middle) well inland and forecast to push toward the northern Plains the next couple of days. The 250 mb jetstream (bottom) will become more westerly and be very far south for August (near the Four Corners). The NAM model continues to forecast afternoon showers over the higher terrain of southeast Arizona for rest of week. Tropical Depression Five-E is forecast to become a TS and move ashore east of New Orleans. A remnant inverted trough from the TD may head westward across northern Mexico this weekend.


No comments:

Post a Comment